


between your heart and mine

by oflights



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Language Barrier, M/M, Public Sex, References to Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:47:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflights/pseuds/oflights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It feels like we grew up together here." (or: Sid and Geno are both rookies that can't exactly talk to each other, but they have a lot of sex anyway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	between your heart and mine

**Author's Note:**

> God I had NO idea how to tag this. This also includes, like, a muffling kink? Not making noise because people could hear and getting off on that? Sorry I'm terrible at tagging, whoops.
> 
> This took me forever and I have no idea why, but my entire timeline is full of heroes for waiting for it and cheerleading and oh God it's probably not even worth it, don't look at me /o\ The title is from Noah and the Whale because I hate myself, and somehow, someway, Bridget managed to beta this for me. Thank you, Bridget. 
> 
> The original idea was from Becca and so really I owe this to her. Super hope it lives up to whatever hype you people think there should be. <3333

The media asks Sidney about Evgeni Malkin a bunch of times, at various stages. They ask him before Evgeni’s arrived, and after he’s made his grand escape, after his training camp setback and after they’ve played together once, then twice, then more than that. By then, Evgeni is Geno, and things have—changed.

At first, Sidney is just grateful to be asked about a Russian that isn’t Ovechkin. He is always happy to talk up a teammate, and he means everything he says about Geno.

But then, Sidney’s more grateful that he’s good with the media, good at spitting out canned and routine responses about this sort of thing, because after things—change, well. Sidney’s media training is basically the only thing that keeps him from blurting out that he’d like to lick Geno.

It gets a little annoying, then, to be asked about Geno so much, to have to talk about him without blurting out that he’d like to do many more things than just lick Geno, actually, and some of them are pretty creative. It’s hard to talk about Geno’s game without a running mental porno going on in Sidney’s head starring Geno’s big hands, his strong, powerful shoulders, his long gangly limbs draped over Sidney and holding him tight. 

It’s stupid, really. It makes Sidney feel like a liar, which is the stupidest thing of all. He’s not _lying_ to reporters when he tells them that Geno’s basically the best thing ever, or that he’s excited to play with him, or that he loves playing with him a whole lot once that finally happens. 

He’s just leaving out the part where he day-and-night-dreams about getting his mouth around Geno’s dick, imagining him hard, using discreet locker room peeks he’s become the _master_ of now as the basis for the idea that Geno would probably be pretty big hard. He’d probably make Sidney’s jaw hurt. 

He doesn’t _want_ to talk about it. He never talks about it, is the thing, not to anyone—generally the only guys he’s ever talked to about these kinds of things are the guys more directly involved, temporary teammates and/or schoolmates that were privy to the fantasies because they’d participated in them with him. 

Talking had been a way to get things going, a muttered “You wanna?” when body language wasn’t clear enough. Talking was a risk, of course, one that didn’t always pan out, and any bumps or bruises thereafter were more shameful than painful, but if the risk paid off there was more talking, because Sidney has never understood not talking about exactly what he wants and how. 

This doesn’t involve any talking, and Sidney doesn’t see how it ever could. All that he understands about Geno at first is his hockey. His eyes are warm and kind but a complete mystery to Sidney, guarded and shy and understandably so, really. 

Sidney talks to Geno like he talks to the media, equally guarded, but he uses his hands more. Geno doesn’t really get any of it, unless Gonch is there. There’s no way on Earth he could ever get Gonch to translate “You wanna?” or some variation to Geno, even if he thought Geno might answer “ _Da_.” 

So Sidney doesn’t talk about it. He just jerks off a lot, trying to keep quiet in Mario’s guesthouse and assuring himself when he fails that no one could hear him from the main house anyway, it would be impossible. 

He also plays a lot of hockey, the sting of the overly long offseason still at his back and the hunger for _more_ making his fingers tingle in his gloves. There is a letter on his sweater and it keeps him up at night, excited and anxious and only a little desperate to live up to it. 

The Penguins are captainless and Sidney does his best to lead by example, which is the only way he knows how to lead. He works hard the way he always does but maybe a little extra now, maybe more when he notices Geno watching him and staying a bit later, sacrificing rides home with Gonch to stay back with Sidney. 

It’s torturous and perfect; they say nothing to each other except what little hockey terms Geno knows. Sometimes Sidney speaks in English, sometimes Geno speaks in Russian, and sometimes a few others stay and sometimes it is just them. They sweat in each other’s space and muscle each other around and sometimes, when the puck hits the back of the net in some way that could be considered spectacular, or when a janitor accidentally turns the lights off on them, they laugh together.

Sidney really likes the way Geno laughs, so much that he forgets to be self-conscious about his own laugh.

They’re in the dark one night, stupidly staying out—they can’t see the puck and they keep bumping into each other, the only light streaming in from the streetlights outside. Geno’s voice is a low murmur in Russian, punctuated by laughter whenever they bump. This is stupid, though, and Geno is warm and solid and Sidney has a fucking boner, so he finally scoops the puck up blindly and says, “Stop for the night, okay?”

Geno just says, “Okay,” with the syllables drawn out, practiced and careful. He keeps talking, skating toward the edge of the rink, and Sidney follows his voice, the glints of the light outside off his black helmet, until his skates leave the ice. 

He wobbles a bit, tripping where it’s darker, and Geno grabs his elbow and says something in Russian, chirpy. Sidney can hear the smile in his voice and grins back, not sure if Geno can even see it.

Gus sees them in the lit-up hallway, waddling toward the locker room, and starts apologizing profusely for turning the lights off on them again. “It’s fine,” Sidney says hurriedly. “Really, it was our fault, we shouldn’t stay so late and not tell anyone.” 

Geno says, “Okay,” in that sweet, deep way of his and continues on his waddle, leaving Sidney to keep rebuking Gus’ apologies until he can excuse himself to go shower.

His boner hasn’t gone away, which is neither convenient nor surprising, especially not when Geno is traipsing naked around the room with a towel thrown over one shoulder and flip-flops on. He smiles big at Sidney and disappears into the showers.

Sidney sits down by his stall and starts shucking his gear. He squeezes his thighs together once he’s nearly naked and hunches over, practically doubled, as the sounds of water beating on the tiles starts up and Geno starts humming faintly. 

He feels like his dick is laughing at him. Sidney scrubs his hands over his face, thinks about waiting this out, and then sighs and heads for the showers with his towel wrapped around his waist, just in case.

They’re alone, though; he can hear the sound of a floor buffer far off, barely heard over the sound of the water and Geno’s humming but reassuring, at least. Sidney stays facing the wall, several showers down from Geno and on the other side. He dares to ghost his hand between his legs and bites his other wrist when he tries to moan. 

The thing is, he’s really bad at being quiet, or else this would be easily solvable, if a little creepy. He’s pretty much coiled up and ready to spring, a few tugs and this could be over. But Geno is so close. Geno’s not Colby on a road trip, who would snap, “Bathroom, Sid, don’t even,” the second Sidney’s breathing picked up, but in a fond sort of way. Geno is his teammate but practically a stranger, and Sidney likes his laugh and does not want to preclude himself ever hearing it again. 

So he has to hold out. Geno doesn’t take long showers and Sidney tries to concentrate on washing up, going slower than he normally would. Geno will finish and get dressed and wait for Sidney to drive him home, sans boner. This will work. 

On cue, the water from Geno’s showerhead turns off. The humming tapers off and the flip-flops slap against the floor and Sidney chances a soft sigh, finally letting a soapy hand cup his balls and hissing through his teeth.

He jumps hard when he hears, “Sid?” from right behind him. Sidney cranes his neck to see Geno in a towel, skin pink all over from steam and water droplets clinging to him. His hair is a mess probably from being rubbed thoroughly with the towel and Sidney wants to whimper just looking at him.

But Geno’s eyes are big and questioning and Sidney remembers—this is different than their usual routine. Sidney always finishes his shower first; he’s always the one waiting for Geno, and even though this has happened more than a few times, Geno always asks, “Ride?” with that same kind of wide-eyed uncertainty. Like Sidney’s just gonna leave him here one night, like he’d ever do that. 

That’s obviously what Geno’s here to ask. His eyes are faithfully above Sidney’s neck but this is a terrible time to ask him anything. 

“Just a minute, Geno,” Sidney says, and Geno just looks at him kind of helplessly, gnawing on his bottom lip. It’s chapped and a little cracked and getting redder from Geno’s teeth and Sidney—Sidney has to turn back to the wall and bow his head, wondering how ridiculously obvious he looks right now. “Ride—okay—just give me a _minute._ ”

“Okay?” Geno asks. He sounds deeply concerned, not just uncertain, and the noise Sidney makes when he feels him stepping closer probably doesn’t help matters. “Sid, okay?”

“ _Okay_ ,” Sidney says through gritted teeth. But it’s really not okay then, because Geno steps closer, and Sidney flinches on instinct, angling his body in a way that’s impossible to hide anything. Geno freezes, and Sidney closes his eyes and feels his face burn red hot under the spray of the shower. 

They are both quiet for a moment, spent in Sidney’s head trying to rationalize this. There is no way this has never happened to teammates in a locker room. It’s a miracle it’s never happened to him in a locker room, and that fatalist gay part of him wants to chuckle at how it had to happen someday. 

There’s no way, though, that he can explain all that to Geno. Sidney can’t really explain anything to Geno, unless it’s related to hockey. He latches on to that, feeling his chest go a little tight, and still without looking at Geno, he mumbles, “Sorry. It’s—it’s, uh, hockey.”

Geno is quiet again, and then he repeats “Hockey,” very slowly and carefully. Sidney nods stiffly, shame washing over him in sheets harder than the water still pounding on him. He feels like the first time he ever had a sleepover past puberty, sleeping bags tucked too close, lying on his stomach with his heart pounding and his erection painfully wedged between himself and the floor. He remembers the whispered, grossed-out “ _Dude_ ,” and a boy moving away from him, and it was so hard just then to remember his dad promising that it happened to everyone.

“Yeah,” Sidney says weakly. He might be shaking a little, though the water hasn’t even had the sense to go cold. “Hockey.”

It’s another moment before Geno says, “Okay,” and backs out, flip-flops announcing his retreat.

Sidney sighs out, “Okay,” and glares down at his dick, still fucking hard and probably laughing at him again. Apparently humiliation isn’t a boner killer for him—he’s a little terrified that it might be the opposite—and the idea of Geno waiting for him certainly isn’t one at all. Sidney has to hope he’s waiting as he starts stroking himself, groaning as low as he can, which still isn’t low enough surrounded by echo-prone tiles.

And then he yelps, high and piercing, because he can feel Geno behind him again, suddenly and _close_. Sidney spins around before he can think better of it and nearly yells again in an entirely different way when he sees that Geno has lost the towel and the flip-flops. His hair is still crazy, his eyes are still wide, but they are hungry and dark now, and he has his hand on his dick, which is catching up to Sidney’s very quickly.

Sidney does not manage to keep his eyes above Geno’s neck even for a second, but from the looks of things, Geno might not mind.

“Hockey,” Geno says very seriously, almost earnest. He gestures at himself and at Sidney and then says, “Okay?” with another uncertain lilt. But there is nothing uncertain about the way his eyes are dragging over Sidney’s body, and Sidney loses shame quickly over returning the favor, watching Geno’s skinny chest start to heave and his navel still collecting water droplets. 

He’d been right about Geno’s dick when he’d imagined it hard, and Sidney has to bite his lip when he looks at it. He hasn’t always been great at body language, not off the ice, but he’d have to be a true dumbass to miss these signals, and he’s not going to pass this chance up to be a dumbass. 

“Okay,” Sidney says. Geno’s answering grin is practically feral, and Sidney feels it against his lips when Geno crashes into him, kissing him hard and enthusiastically. 

Sidney moans into the kiss, feeling it vibrate through his own chest and against Geno’s. His dick brushes against Geno’s waist and he shudders all over, harder when Geno’s arms go around him and his tongue pokes out to prod at the seam of Sidney’s lips. 

The kiss becomes wet, then, independent of the water streaming down on them. A few seconds in and Sidney can tell that Geno is a sloppy kisser, handy and liberal with his tongue. Sidney likes sloppy, likes the way his mouth feels messy and a bit used already against Geno’s. 

He likes it enough that when it breaks off, he makes a rather loud noise of protest. Geno eyes are sparkling when they meet, and his lips (not soft but plush and demanding, as good as Sidney had ever imagined) form a soft and enticing oh when he whispers, “Shh.”

Sidney feels himself go hot again, all over, and his dick twitches against Geno’s hip (shit, the humiliation thing is _not what he needs right now_ ). He tries to drum up some indignation, a bit of defensiveness, but Geno’s kind of—he’s touching him, not his dick but his sides, one of Geno’s big palms flattening out across his rib cage and the other held tight to his hip.

He’s not sure what’s happening until he feels himself being turned, facing the wall again. “What—” Sidney starts, but it breaks off into a gasp when Geno reaches around and cups him gently, rubbing him. His other hand stays at Sidney’s hip, stroking down a bit to the bottom of Sidney’s ass. He squeezes, just slightly, and he strokes Sidney’s dick, and Sidney gets it all very quickly and moans out his consent, bracing his hands against the wall and rocking back on Geno’s erection suddenly slotted snugly between his ass cheeks. 

“Shh,” Geno says again, and Sidney knows why—they are alone but Gus is still out there, and who knows who else could come looking. He has never done anything like this in such a public place and it’s hard to believe this isn’t actually a fantasy sequence right now, ripped from his dirtiest dreams. 

He moans again, can’t help it, logic gone out the window with his shame, apparently, when Geno starts thrusting against him in time with his strokes. Geno says something in Russian that sounds harsh and low and _filthy_ , and he squeezes Sidney’s ass one more time before moving his hand up, all the way around once more.

“Shh,” he whispers, right in Sidney’s ear, and he fits his palm over Sidney’s mouth. It’s trembling a little and it’s timely as fuck because it muffles Sidney’s shout as he comes, wet over Geno’s hand and against the tiles in front of him. He seizes up against Geno and whimpers into his other hand as Geno’s thrusts speed up, frantic, before he’s coming too, a gush of warmth over Sidney’s ass and a groan choked into the back of Sidney’s neck. 

Geno keeps a light hold of Sidney’s dick until he starts flinching away from it, but his hand drops quickly from Sidney’s mouth, so quick that he kind of—misses it, enough to make him flush again. When he turns to face Geno again, Geno is flushed, too, his mouth open a little. He looks like he’s just finished a shift.

This time, Geno’s eyes aren’t telling Sidney to kiss him, but he takes the risk anyway. It’s worth it when Geno opens for him, eager and wet again, his hand drifting down to Sidney’s ass and palming a handful that makes him squirm, suddenly regretful that he can’t get another boner this fast.

They kiss under the spray until a door bangs hard in the hallway, and the floor buffer sound draws nearer. They both jump apart as if electrocuted, Geno’s eyes dark and terrified and no doubt mirroring Sidney’s own, and now it is Sidney’s turn to say, “Shh,” and listen carefully. 

Geno steps aside anyway, leaving Sidney to back under the center of the spray and rinse himself off quickly. Geno’s out in the dressing room already by the time he turns the water off and pads out, and Sidney looks at him half-dressed and keeping his head ducked and worries a little, unsure of what he can even say right now. 

In the end, all he says is, “Ride?” once he’s fully dressed again, his hair soaking wet and making him chilly but unwilling to take the time to towel it off right now. Geno’s head snaps up and his face is very complicated—back to guarded again, a little, but a mix of confused and uncertain and relieved, emotions Sidney only recognizes because he’s feeling them all, too. 

Sidney fits on his most encouraging smile and holds up his car keys, jingling them until Geno attempts something close to a smile of his own. Geno follows him out, jumping a little when Sidney brushes his shoulder lightly with his arm, and he is completely silent for the entire ride to Gonch’s house, staring at his knees. 

Sidney is quiet, too, because he doesn’t know what to say, and also knows that even if he knew, he couldn’t exactly say it. It’s a probably a good thing, really; probably Sidney would just say the wrong thing. He’s done that before. 

“Bye,” Geno says when Sidney rolls the car to a stop in front of Gonch’s house. He nods stiffly, hesitates a moment at the car door, and then reaches back to brush his hand over the back of Sidney’s, making eye contact for half a second before ducking away and loping toward the house.

“Bye,” Sidney calls, a little plaintive, his hand warm where Geno had just barely touched it. 

 

It’s hard not to think that what happened really was a dream after that—very vivid, yes, but almost certainly not real, because nothing really changes after. Sidney has hooked up singularly like this before but never quite so riskily, and he’s ready and waiting for consequences and kind of expecting them to be worse than anything in the past. 

But nothing happens. He and Geno keep playing like they have been; Geno follows him out for every game like he has been since he arrived, and reporters ask him about Geno like they have been since before he arrived. Everything’s normal. Gonch never threatens Sidney and Gus never laughs at Sidney and really, Sidney is starting to think he’d imagined it all.

He thinks he might be imagining the way Geno looks at him sometimes, too. He has to at least be imagining the weight behind it, the way it looks like Geno is hungry for him now, eyes so dark and heavy and curious. It doesn’t feel like a change, exactly, like maybe Geno was always looking at him like that, and now Sidney’s just projecting onto it. It’s all pretty confusing, and really not something he should be obsessing over right now.

Sidney’s not very good at ignoring so many signs, though, not for long. There are patterns everywhere, on the ice and off it, and Sidney is always great at putting those patterns to good use. Geno looks at him a lot, too much, noticeably enough that Colby gives him secretly approving shit for making a new friend.

“Smart, too, going for the ones that barely speak English,” Colby says, slapping him on the back as they get ready for bed on the road one night. “They won’t realize what a jackass you sound like all the time.”

“Flower’s English is fine,” Sidney says, saying nothing of his own French, and because they’ve talked about this before. He likes Flower, whose own idiosyncrasies and focus feel familiar and comfortable to him. It has nothing to do with language. He likes Geno because of how much he loves hockey, how he tries to laugh at everything he could feasibly understand, and because he wants to bang him pretty much all the time. Language has nothing to do with _that_ , either.

It could make things easier, though. Because Geno’s not staying after practice with him so much anymore, or even laughing with him that much anymore. He’s just looking. Sidney is _scoring_ and Geno passes to him like he’s the surest thing he’s ever known on the ice, but Sidney doesn’t know how to convey “we should do it like we did in the shower again, maybe in a bed this time. Maybe I can use my mouth?” 

He takes a different approach, arranging what Colby calls a play date through Gonch and valiantly managing not to giggle like a moron every time Colby calls it that. “You should come over tomorrow night,” Sidney tells Geno, and he looks at Gonch for help. “Tell him he should come over. I mean. If he wants to?”

Gonch is smirking at him, making Sidney kind of regret doing this in the locker room before practice, because soon Gonch won’t be the only one. Already, Erik is snickering into his stall at them and Max is loudly asking Flower if he wants to come over after school and play, in English so there’s no doubt who he’s mocking, and Sidney just rolls his eyes and then casts them hopefully at Gonch. He doesn’t mind drawing the attention of the locker room; he’d rather them focus on his laughable social life than the Kansas City rumors or anything like that.

His message is relayed and Geno looks kind of caught, eyes wide and uncertain again as he rattles Russian back at Gonch. Gonch snaps something at him, almost chastising, and then sighs deeply when he looks back at Sidney. 

“What for?”

Sidney frowns. The answer is sex, and he’s pretty sure Geno knows it just from how heavy his gaze is on Sidney, the way his eyes keep darting up and down Sidney’s body before looking nervously away. But neither of them are going to say that in the locker room, so he comes up with more incentives. “Uh, I have some games?”

“He has terrible games,” Colby says in passing, elbowing him from behind. Sidney scowls but stops as soon as Geno’s lips quirk upward a bit. This time, he doesn’t look away from Sidney’s face, his eyes a little softer.

“Nathalie makes gingersnaps on Saturdays,” Sidney says insistently. Gonch’s voice is full of laughter when he tells Geno, then presumably explains what gingersnaps are. “They’re _really good_ ,” Sidney tells him carefully, making eye contact with Geno again and smiling as encouragingly as he knows how. 

“Good,” Geno repeats. His eyes are still soft, softer than they’ve been since before he pressed up against Sidney from behind and jerked him off. He looks fond of Sidney, like everyone looks when they call him “kid”, regardless of the A on his jersey and the impressive numbers on his scoresheet. He doesn’t mind it like this.

Gonch says some more stuff, also looking fond (maybe of both of them), and in the end he agrees to drop Geno off after dinnertime. Geno says, “Good, Sid,” and bumps him a few times in practice, skating close and babbling at him in Russian, which is something he hasn’t done in a while. 

Sidney hopes he’s not beaming and realizes that hope is probably futile when Rex pinches his cheek on the way to the showers and says, “Better brush up on your miming skills, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Sidney says automatically, which means that’s the only way Bugsy, Rex, Scuds and Colby address him all through dinner that night. Even Jordy tries it, which is just such bullshit, and so Sidney goes to sleep that night contemplating both his upcoming hangout with Geno and what kind of prank he can convince Max to help him pull on Jordy. 

Gonch is prompt and Geno is wearing a very nice sweater when he gets dropped off at the Lemieux guest house early the next evening. His hair is combed and he casts nervous glances up at the main house, like Mario is going to swoop in out of nowhere and chase him off the property.

“They’re not home,” Sidney says. It’s date night, and Sidney’s technically supposed to be babysitting, but the girls are all at a sleepover and Austin had seemed fine, holed up in his room and playing video games. Sidney gives it about an hour before he has a sugar crash from all the gingersnaps he and Sidney had already scarfed down. 

He’d saved some for Geno, and offers them to him after taking Geno’s coat and showing him where the TV is. Geno sits down stiffly, still looking all around, and he takes a gingersnap like it might be a bomb. 

Sidney doesn’t know if he’s being a terrible host, if Geno showed up only out of politeness, or both, but he can feel his shoulders drooping the longer they both just sit there on the couch, stiff and strange the way they’ve never been on the ice. “They really are good,” Sidney says, grumbling a little, and he stuffs a gingersnap in his mouth for something to do, the sound of his chewing filling the stupidly quiet room.

Geno looks at him, looks at the cookie, and then takes a bite. His eyes kind of light up, and he smiles as he chews, waiting to swallow before exclaiming, “Good!” He’s so surprised it’s like he thought Sidney was messing with him, and he’s delighted to be wrong.

“I told you,” Sidney says, trying for annoyed but really only managing dumb relief. Geno is busy helping himself to more cookies, and he relaxes gradually into the couch, enough so that Sidney says a mental thank you to Nathalie and her wonder-baking. 

They’re halfway through them all when it occurs to Sidney that he should offer Geno something to drink. He mimes the question to Geno and heads to the kitchen when Geno nods eagerly with his mouth full.

Bugsy got Sidney a case of beer that he’s been hiding in the vegetable drawer of his fridge for weeks, not because he thinks he’d get in trouble for having it but because he doesn’t want people to know he hasn’t bothered touching it yet. He pulls one of the bottles out and lines it up on the counter next to the milk, a bottle of Gatorade, and a bottle of water, all options he’s planning to bring in to ask Geno to point and choose. 

Geno joins him in the kitchen, though, brushing crumbs from his nice sweater. The sleeves are a little short on him, stretched out at the wrist, and his face is flushed lightly pink. Sidney likes to keep the heat turned up in the winter and he wonders if Geno’s too warm, if he should mess with the thermostat or tell him he can take off his sweater or maybe take it off for him, and there are options he likes more than others in that list. 

“Pick,” he tells Geno, gesturing at the drinks, but Geno barely looks at them. He’s looking at Sidney, and he looks a little frustrated. When he speaks, the Russian words sound frustrated, too, and Sidney wonders if he’d made another hosting mistake.

“I don’t understand,” Sidney says, feeling stupid, and stupider now that he’d said that. Of course he doesn’t understand. Geno knows that already. “What do you need?”

Geno says something, unintelligible to Sidney, and moves forward until he can touch Sidney, putting his hands at his hips. “Oh!” Sidney says, immediately pleased—he was working up to this. 

“Okay?” Geno asks, looking genuinely worried, almost enough that Sidney wants to roll his eyes.

“Of course,” Sidney says, and then, so there’s no mistake, “ _Yes._ Okay. Why do you think I asked you over?”

Geno’s smile is back, and his eyes are wide and so dark already, looking at Sidney with something anticipatory and hungry and maybe smug, too. Sidney hopes this is the end of any questions or uncertainty, that Geno gets now how much Sidney wants him—he can’t tell him but he can show him, and he decides to, leaning up on his bare toes to kiss Geno firmly, hands clutched in his sweater. It’s very soft, and Geno is warm against him.

It gets messy really quick, Geno’s mouth opening immediately and invitingly. His tongue slips past Sidney’s lips and Sidney winds his against it. Geno tastes like gingery sweetness and Sidney happily licks the taste from his mouth, shifting in Geno’s hands and sighing when they drift down to cup his ass in his sweats, squeezing lightly. 

He’s glad that Geno isn’t shy with this stuff, and he’s starting to think that Geno’s not really shy at all, that it’s been English all this time. There is nothing shy about how he pushes Sidney back against the counter and thrusts his tongue into his mouth, ignoring the spit that’s kind of getting everywhere and maybe shouldn’t be as hot as it actually is. It’s probably bad kissing in objective terms, but Sidney likes it because it feels sure, affirmative: yes, this is happening, and there is tons of saliva around to prove it.

Sidney pushes his ass back into Geno’s hands, pinning them against his utensil drawer. The movement just draws a grunt from Geno’s throat, and his hips circling in tight against Sidney, little movements until they’re both hard and starting to pant at each other. It feels too fast and too slow at the same time, and Sidney feels dizzy when he thinks that they really have all night, as long as they want. Maybe they can get to the bed.

He can’t suggest this, but he can start guiding Geno back toward the couch as a start, knocking them into a kitchen chair and then stubbing his toe on the doorframe. “Fuck,” Sidney mutters, and Geno kisses over his scowl and flips them around, walking Sidney backwards and with a much better command of both their motor skills. 

Geno drops onto the couch first and tugs Sidney with him. Sidney goes easily into his lap, eager, plucking at his sweater insistently until Geno chuckles lowly and leans back to pull it off. He has a collared shirt underneath, a lot of buttons for Sidney’s suddenly frenzied fingers, but together they get them undone and Geno’s chest is bare in front of him, nipples hardening under Sidney’s gaze.

Sidney hadn’t gotten to look much in the shower, facing the wall and focused mostly on how Geno had felt, but now he looks with hungry eyes, raking over Geno’s skinny chest. He follows his gaze with his lips, kissing down as far as he can hunch comfortably, and then rearing back up so fast he nearly busts Geno’s chin with his head as he remembers one of his main objectives for the night.

“Hey,” he says, and Geno blinks at him owlishly, mouth open and very wet. “Can I blow you?”

Geno just frowns, and Sidney’s a little amazed he hadn’t picked that one up yet—Scuds has told Bugsy to blow him loads of time, usually with accompanying hand gestures, and it’s standard locker room or on-ice talk enough that it sometimes fuels interesting fantasies for Sidney. Sidney does the hand gesture, pointing at Geno’s crotch and feeling his cheeks flame, and watches Geno’s eyes go very wide.

He’s biting his bottom lip, too, and at first Sidney thinks that’s a bad sign. But then Geno bursts out laughing, and Sidney huffs out loudly in annoyance, shoving Geno back into the couch cushions.

“Hey! I was just asking!”

Geno laughs some more, says something giggly in Russian, and then repeats the hand gesture until Sidney has to laugh too, dropping against him and laughing into Geno’s bare shoulder. Geno presses a kiss to the side of his head, sloppy in the way that Sidney knows is default now, and kisses him all over until Sidney is just giggling against his mouth, Geno’s arms tight around him.

They kiss until Geno mutters “Yes,” very carefully, soft enough that Sidney has to lean back and study his face to make sure he’d heard right.

“Yes,” Sidney repeats, and he grins big when Geno nods eagerly, eyes fixed on his mouth. “ _Yes._ ”

He scrambles off the couch to get on his knees and accidentally elbows the coffee table, pain ringing through his funny bone and making him swear loudly and probably blush some more. Geno cups his hand over Sidney’s head and strokes through his hair, smiling widely. He stretches his legs out and curls his feet over the edge of the table, pushing it across the carpet and giving Sidney more space, and he spreads his legs, just watching Sidney until he crawls into the spot between them. 

He undoes Geno’s nice slacks, tugging at them until Geno obligingly lifts his hips to let him pull them all the way off. Sidney should maybe feel sloppy in his sweats and old t-shirt, wondering why Geno thought he needed to dress up a little, but he kind of likes that he did. He likes the idea of effort, and Geno putting a little thought into hanging out with Sidney, maybe thinking about Sidney doing exactly this: taking his slacks off and pushing them aside in case this gets messy. Nothing either of them have done so far suggests this won’t get messy.

Sidney takes Geno out of his boxer briefs and listens to his breathing get ragged, jerking him carefully a few times and watching his dick with no small amount of fascination. He likes the weight of it in his hand, likes the way his fingers look curled around it, and when Geno says something low in Russian, he likes that too. 

He doesn’t know what it means, but when he looks up curiously at Geno’s face, he can pretty much guess. With the same kind of care, Sidney leans forward to take Geno into his mouth.

Geno talks more. Sidney was right, it gets messy, messier the more he sucks, and Geno’s talking spurs him on: breathless and filthy and rough. It makes Sidney moan and squirm on the floor, sucking Geno in earnest, rolling his eyes up when Geno gets a hand in his hair and says something low and almost harsh.

He keeps talking, and Sidney doesn’t know why he’s talking or what he’s saying, but he kind of likes imagining it. He catches “Good,” in English once or twice, pained and grunted out, and the language he really understands is Geno’s fingers tightening in his hair, his breaths going quick and shallow, the smell of him getting more aroused and overpowering as Sidney licks at his balls and noses at the crease of his thigh.

He has his mouth closed over the head of Geno’s dick again when the tugging gets insistent, the breaths harsher and quicker. Geno says something in Russian that’s repeated, a few different times, and Sidney’s pleased that these are all really good signs. Then Geno says, “ _Sid_ ,” and tugs _hard_ and Sidney gets it quickly, pulling off fast.

Not fast enough, though, and Geno shoots warmth all over his face, his lips and cheeks and dripping down his chin. Sidney’s face burns with heat, and Geno’s eyes are wide and frozen with apology, grabbing himself guiltily. “No,” Sidney says, not even on purpose, like maybe it’s a different person saying it through his voice, and he licks at his lips and looks up at Geno as shamelessly as he can with a face as red as a tomato, covered in come.

Geno stares at him, sags into the couch, and then says, “Sorry,” with breathless difficulty. Sidney shakes his head, wipes at his chin with his fingers, and then pops them into his mouth thoughtfully.

It’s pretty standard jizz, not his favorite taste or thing to do or anything, but Geno’s face makes it all worth it, and the way he scrambles to haul Sidney up into his lap again helps, too. His fingers trace over where Sidney had missed and then prod at his lips, questioning, and Sidney takes them into his mouth with no question at all, sucking on them enthusiastically and grinding down into Geno’s lap.

“Sorry,” Geno says again thickly, huffing out a bit of laughter, the tops of his cheeks pink and his eyes kind of sparkling. He pulls his fingers away and makes a pained sort of noise that’s _really_ good for Sidney when Sidney tries to follow them with his mouth, and he replaces the fingers with his tongue, his mouth firm and insistent over Sidney’s.

Sidney’s grinding down still, enjoying being kissed so thoroughly again but also wondering what the next move is. “Hey,” he says when Geno stops to breathe heavily, burying his face in Sidney’s neck. “Hey, can you go again?”

Geno just makes a noise, uncomprehending and gruff, so Sidney wiggles around until he can get a hand between them. He cups curiously at Geno’s dick and looks at him when he shudders and jerks his head up, eyes darkening. “You can fuck me,” he tells Geno, thinking about it vividly, and Geno still doesn’t understand until Sidney moves Geno’s hands to cup his ass again, looking down at his dick and raising his eyebrows. 

Geno gets it then, and practically tosses Sidney onto his back on the couch, startling a laugh out of him that gets swallowed up by Geno’s lips on his again. His hands are moving quickly, between them and brushing over Sidney’s dick and under his t-shirt and gripping his wrists, and it takes a lot of strength and will to detach their mouths and go, “No, wait.”

There is a beat where they’re both a little frozen, Sidney regretting saying _no_ already, and he hastens to clarify before Geno can go uncertain again and lose his delicious enthusiasm. “I mean—bed. We should go to the bed, fuck on my bed.”

“Bed,” Geno says slowly, looking skeptical. Sidney nods eagerly, and takes Geno’s hands and manages to roll out from under him, dragging him away. It occurs to him as he takes Geno through the guesthouse that he’s totally naked except for his socks, and Sidney has all his clothes on, and that’s probably hilarious, but he likes looking at Geno naked too much to laugh about it. 

“We should definitely fuck on my bed,” Sidney says when they reach the bedroom. Geno says something in Russian, a string of something excited and interested, and he looks like he wants to throw Sidney around again, hands clenching in the air. 

Sidney grins at him, strips quickly, and lets himself be thrown.

 

He’s a little sore after, and very lazy, flopped on his stomach while Geno stretches out beside him like a long, very satisfied cat. He’s stroking a little over the damp skin of Sidney’s back, and Sidney relaxes under the gentle touch, remembering the rougher, more enthusiastic feel of getting fucked into hard. This is good, too. 

Geno’s face is kind of soft and thoughtful when Sidney peeks up at him, and he grins at Sidney warmly. He says something low in Russian, gentle like his hand, and Sidney finds himself flushing for no real reason.

They lie there long enough for Sidney to start considering the time, the logistics of forcing himself up and back into clothes he wants nothing to do with, so he can get Geno home before Mario and Nathalie come home and notice him taking his car out. It’s Geno who conveniently asks, “Ride?” after a little while, not really uncertain now but almost apologetic, regretful. 

Sidney leans up and uses kissing Geno as incentive, nodding against his forehead and sighing out, “Yeah, come on.” He bends for his clothes gingerly, feeling Geno’s eyes heavy and hot on him, and smiles when he looks back at Geno on the bed. He’s still wearing his socks and nothing else. Sidney kind of wants him to keep that way.

He doesn’t, though. Instead he drives Geno home, parks halfway down the street from Gonch’s house so he can kiss Geno for a good five minutes or so in the car, jerking apart when he leans too far and accidentally elbows the horn. They just look at each other, grins kind of wild, and it’s a basically Herculean effort to get the car moving again and rolling into Gonch’s driveway. 

He sleeps like a log that night and eats a monstrous breakfast, a little too pleased with any twinges he feels when he sits down in the hard kitchen chairs, smothering his smiles into bacon and eggs. Nobody asks Sidney why he looks like a happy lunatic at the breakfast table, but Mario does get him talking about their game the next night, like he wants Sidney to stay that happy. 

It’s impossible not to, not when they win their next game and Geno sucks him off in the guesthouse again, snuck in late after getting beers with the guys downtown. Sidney is tipsy and grabby and kind of loud, enough that Geno shoots him fondly exasperated looks with his mouth on Sidney’s dick. 

He pulls off to go “Shh,” and then backs the instruction up by climbing on top of Sidney and sitting on his chest, knees digging into Sidney’s ribs and making him kind of breathless. Geno jerks himself off, leaving Sidney to just roll his hips up and whine kind of embarrassingly, something pleading and helplessly turned on making his stomach turn over.

Geno comes on his chest, panting a little, eyes going kind of crazy the more Sidney moves and makes noise. He shushes him again breathlessly and then moves back a little, grabbing Sidney’s dick in one hand and covering his mouth with the other hand, slick from his orgasm.

Sidney comes almost immediately, surprisingly, his back arching up as much as he can and his toes curling so much they might cramp. His cry is high-pitched and muffled and fucking wrecked, and it’s hard to believe it came from him. Geno sits on him a little longer, watching him, heavy and kind of suffocating in a way that would bother Sidney if he were less blissed out, mouth going slack under Geno’s warm, damp palm and the rest of his body following suit.

He groans a little when Geno’s hand moves away, when he starts climbing off, but Geno just stares at him, eyes roving over Sidney hungrily. It’s enough to make him blush a little, thinking of himself spread out and covered in come like this, being stared at like a feast, but—Geno kisses him like both their lives depend on it and he doesn’t stop, not for a long time, until Sidney is dizzy with breathlessness again. 

It kind of feels like Sidney never catches his breath again: his world narrows down to hockey and sex, both wordless, easily understood focuses to pour everything he has into. Geno just gets _better_ , like Sidney promised the media he would, and it’s so exciting watching him tear up the league, so much so that it’s almost startling when he gets asked about his own points production.

Nothing Sidney does feels particularly extraordinary to him, no matter what everyone’s saying about it. But what the team is doing—with Geno, with the echoes of early defeat lingering and driving them towards something hugely better, and the churning, worrying state of the team’s future casting a pall over everything—is starting to feel special, special enough that it’s hard to put into words. 

He’s good at saying nothing to the media and so he does that a lot. He really says nothing to Geno except “nice backcheck” or “good shift” or “harder, fuck, come on Geno, fuck me harder”.

In most cases of the latter, Geno covers his mouth with his hand even when they’re alone in the guesthouse, even when Geno is spewing Russian words that sound much filthier to Sidney’s untrained ears, and even when he does what Sidney tells him to. Sidney’s pretty sure he doesn’t do it to keep Sidney quiet anymore, or at least, not just that. That’s kind of thrilling.

As thrilling as anything with Geno is, hockey or sex, Sidney doesn’t talk about it. At first the secret part is also thrilling, a different kind of special than what the team is doing under a heavy spotlight. 

This has always been a secret part of him, the basics of which have only been confessed to Colby, Mario, and his family, and shared with anybody who feels the same way. Anything but secrecy is incredibly dangerous, and he knows without needing to be told that Geno feels that way, too.

Secrecy is important and they are careful, careful enough that it’s ugly and jarring when the secrecy starts unraveling a bit. First is Colby, who stays after practice with them one day because he’d managed to make Sidney _promise_ to get dinner with him afterward, and yes out in public, no not a drive-thru, no he doesn’t mind if they have to sign autographs, they can go in through the kitchens if they have to.

Sidney and Geno are barely on the ice together for an extra ten minutes, and it’s not like they jump each other in the showers (again), but the second they’ve separated and Sidney is alone in the car with Colby, Colby pumps his fist in the air and nearly punches the roof of Sidney’s car, crowing triumphantly.

“You are fucking _Geno_!” Colby says, cackling delightedly, Sidney stares at him long enough that someone beeps at him, jolting him into recognizing the green light, and he has to decide if he’s shaking enough that he needs to pull over somewhere or if he can keep driving.

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“I’m such a dumbass,” Colby says. It sounds like he’s talking to himself, shaking his head in his seat. “The team is in deep, we might be moving to Kansas like some Wizard of Oz shit—”

“Oh my God, that’s the wrong Kansas City, you _are_ a dumbass—”

“—and you’re walking around with that dazed, shit-eating grin all the time. I knew something had to be up with you, you didn’t even get that pissed when lost in a shootout last week. You _hate_ losing in shootouts.”

Sidney scowls deeply. “Of course I didn’t get that pissed, we played fine and pushed hard and we’re on the right track again. What does that have to do with Geno or Kansas City?”

“Because, Sid, I am not blind,” Colby tells him. He taps the side of his face, at his temple. “You basically never stop looking at each other when it’s just the two of you, holy hell. And when it’s not just you two—fuck, he looks at you a lot, did you know that?”

He can feel himself flushing, staring pointedly ahead at the road even though Colby can probably totally tell. “Not that much.”

Colby laughs out loud. “No, it is that much. It’s way more than that much. Honestly I thought he had a bit of a crush, but the way you two touch each other—”

“We don’t touch each other! Colby!”

“You do, ha, you don’t even realize. It’s pretty obvious.” Sidney feels panicky sweat break out at that, and it’s a fight to keep the car steady, but Colby picks up on that really quickly. “I mean, it’s obvious to me because I know you pretty well, right? And I know what to look for. You definitely don’t pay attention to anybody else on the team as much as you pay attention to him.”

Sidney wants to argue with that—he pays attention to everybody on the team, the call-ups only with them for a few games, or Flower after a bad night. He knows when Bugsy has been arguing with his wife and he can’t exactly help him, knows nothing about relationships or marriages or how they work, but he knows how to say something dorky enough that Bugsy will start picking on him for it. He knows his team really well, knows that he’ll have to know every bit of it if he ever wants to lead them fully.

But, well. He also knows that Geno likes to have the back of his neck massaged lightly, and that he understands the English words “fuck” and “harder” and “please” in entirely different contexts than the team knows about. He knows that Geno loves kissing and can kiss for longer than Sidney has ever tried before, that he likes making Sidney’s mouth bruised and puffy before he even thinks about doing anything else to him. Geno likes his balls licked and he likes grabbing Sidney’s ass more than anything except for maybe fucking into it, and sometimes he’s still slow to respond to “Geno”, in bed and otherwise, even though he was the one to tell people to call him that.

Sidney doesn’t know things like that about anybody else on the team, so maybe Colby has a point.

“It’s not—you won’t tell, right?” Sidney says, and he can tell that Colby’s looking at him like that was a thoroughly stupid question. Colby’s hand clipping the side of his head pretty much confirms that. “Hey, I’m driving, come on.”

“Of course I won’t tell. Idiot.” Colby starts grinning again, like he can’t help it. “Still, though, it’s like fucking the foreign exchange student, eh? Nice, Crosby.”

“He’s not a foreign exchange student,” Sidney says firmly, huffing a little. “He’s not _leaving_ , he’s not just here for a little while. He’s here for—” He has to think about that, tightening his hand on the steering wheel, excitement running through him like a bolt of lightning. 

Geno isn’t here to visit. He’s not someone with an expiration date at the end of the year, a classmate who will graduate or a teammate who will age out. He’s here for two more years at least, almost definitely more than that, and it just seems like a lifetime to Sidney. He’s a part of the team, Sidney’s team, and he worked so hard to be here that it makes him feel so much more important.

That’s a bit scary, really. The brevity of it isn’t helped by Colby chuckling and going, “Aw, Sid,” and trying to ruffle his hair. Geno is important, and so secrecy is important, both to what they’re doing now and to the future. 

They have been careful, though, despite whatever Colby claims. Gonch definitely knows nothing, because he would’ve said something by now; he just drops Geno off at the guesthouse most nights and tells Sidney he’s glad that Geno is making friends on the team, glad that Sidney has taken him under his wing a bit. 

That part makes Sidney feel a little guilty, because he doesn’t think he’s exactly the best role model for Geno—unless Geno’s really into a role model he can bend and enthusiastically fuck over the kitchen table—and because he’s not sure if he can really call this thing a friendship, exactly. Hanging out together always involves fucking, and he’s pretty sure that’s not how friends are supposed to work. 

He and Geno barely talk to each other outside of sex or hockey, mostly because they can’t, but Sidney’s not sure they even would if they could. What would they talk about? Geno isn’t shy, not like Sidney kind of is, and he’s better in public already, getting more and more comfortable with teammates and strangers alike as he acclimates. He’s still kind of guarded with Sidney except during sex and those moments on the ice when everything clicks, everything is perfect and there is a puck in the back of the other team’s net and Geno’s arms are around him. There, his joy is pure and so simple and open to Sidney, and Sidney can look at him and breathe him in and imagine a future of this, over and over again. That’s bigger than a friendship, he thinks.

And then Geno tells a reporter at practice, “Yes, Sid. Good friend,” and smiles awkwardly but honestly, like he means it. Sidney has said dozens of things to reporters that he doesn’t necessarily mean but that night, just before they skate out for warm-ups, Geno stops him in the doorway of the dressing room and says, “Friends, yes?” 

The words sound careful and practiced and Sidney furrows his brow, testing them in his head. This doesn’t fit his definition of friendship but he wonders if just the words are enough, or if it’s maybe not as easily defined as he thinks. Geno looks so earnest and almost—worried, as if Sidney hasn’t let Geno do way more with him than just be friends already. 

“Of course,” Sidney says in the end, because there’s no other real answer; if they’re not friends now, then they’ll have to be after this. To be clearer, he adds, “ _Yes_ ,” and holds out his fist for Geno to bump his against, something Max and Flower do sometimes. After a few seconds, Geno gets it and tries it, and then gently taps his helmet against Sidney’s, eyes wide and excited, like Sidney just pulled out the lube and pointed to the back of the couch.

Sidney taps back, and grins big until Geno is, too, and when they step out one after the other, he kind of feels like he’s flying. When they win that night, leveling the Coyotes and getting to score a goal Sidney only really believes happened when he’s crushed under the weight of the celebration, he decides they’re going to have to make that ritual a regular thing. 

“We’ll have to work on it, though,” Sidney tells Geno at the team dinner, breaking from inhaling a giant victory steak and already dreaming of dessert. Geno nods, his face serious despite everyone snickering around them. “That way we can make sure you put up points, too.”

“Yes,” Geno says, and his grin is wicked. “Share points, Sid.”

“Yeah, _share_ , Sid!” Max yells, as if he hadn’t scored his own goal tonight, but everyone is so proud of Geno for chirping Sid that any argument he makes are lost in the fray. He’s happy for that, though, happy that Geno’s eyes meet his and they are full of secrets, important ones that maybe only friends can keep. 

 

“I’m very glad that you and Evgeni are friends,” Mario tells Sidney when they’re alone at breakfast the next morning, later than Nathalie and the kids but still a little groggy from the late flight in. “You can stop sneaking him into the guesthouse now.”

Sidney sits up very straight, suddenly wide awake. “You—”

“There’s a front gate. It has to be opened every time someone comes in and out. I can pretend not to notice but it’s impossible for me to actually not notice.” Mario doesn’t seem mad, just calm and even-toned as usual, while Sidney feels anything but, mind scrambling to pick a route of explanation.

“Okay, but—it’s not what you think.” He stops abruptly as Mario’s mouth turns down in disappointment, eyes suddenly very sad.

“Please don’t lie to me,” Mario says quietly, and Sidney feels like the very worst person in the world. 

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry and I’ll—we won’t do anything anymore if you don’t—”

“Did I say anything to suggest that at all?” 

Sidney shakes his head, his face burning, looking down at his oatmeal until Mario says, “Sid, look at me,” in that same quiet but commanding tone.

Sidney looks, feeling like his chair’s about to be pulled out from under him. Mario is studying him carefully, penetratingly, enough to make him thoroughly uncomfortable, but when he speaks again his voice is clearly meant to soothe, firm but gentle. “Are you being careful?”

“Of course,” Sidney chokes out. “Nobody knows except for Colby, and we haven’t—we always come here.” He forces himself not to think of the shower, wishing he had Geno to put his hand over his mouth in case he decides to blurt that out in guilt. 

Mario nods. “Good, this is obviously the safest place. And Sidney, you have your privacy, don’t ever think that that’s not true here. You haven’t done anything wrong. But you have to be very, very careful, and I’m not just talking about people finding out.”

“I know,” Sidney says, but Mario continues quickly.

“You’re both very young, and I know you don’t feel that way sometimes, but to me—you are young, and this is risky, and you have to be careful with each other because you aren’t the only people who could be affected by this going wrong.” Sidney feels immediately terrible about that, but Mario just adds, “Believe me, you’re not the first teammates to ever be in this situation, and you won’t be the last, but you still need to consider your positions on the team, and understand that they can never be compromised.”

“Never,” Sidney says as firmly as he can, looking Mario right in the eye. Mario just looks back for a few moments before nodding again.

“I trust you, Sid, and I trust that this team means a lot to both you and Geno. This is your business and I’ll let it stay that way, but please promise me that you’ll be careful, for your own sakes as well as the team’s.”

“I promise, yeah,” Sidney says in a rush. He feels kind of dizzy with relief, and uncomfortable still, like the time his father found him sitting way too close with a boy he used to play street hockey with in the summer. They hadn’t even been doing anything, not really, not yet, but his dad saw and knew and they had to have a long talk about it with his mom. Everything was okay but for days, weeks after he felt like it had to be a trick, that being okay was too good to be true.

He still feels kind of uncomfortable the next time he sees Geno alone, hyperaware of the knowledge that Mario and Nathalie _know_ what they’re doing in this room, even though he still has free reign to do it. Suddenly the future seems less exciting and more terrifying, especially risking it for a guy he’s just having sex with. 

“Geno,” Sidney says, when Geno’s kissing his neck, before he can do that enough that Sidney loses his mind and can’t get any of this out. He can’t get it out anyway, though, not when Geno pulls back to look at him with wide, curious eyes. There aren’t words that Geno would understand fully, and maybe not words that Sidney could construct well enough. Even if Geno could understand, Sidney’s still not sure he’d know what to say.

“Never mind,” he says eventually, and he kisses Geno again, slow and careful and purposeful, enjoying it the way he enjoys the goals he scores on power plays that people say he whines or dives for. 

Geno only says his name once, questioning against his lips, before he gives up too and just presses Sidney back into the bed, presses his hand down his pants to cup his dick. 

This is all simple and addictive, similar to the pure, boundless joy of scoring together. Geno pressing into him is already more familiar than anybody else he’s ever done this with, starting to become ritualistic and comfortable like their handshake, like PB&J at five pm. 

Sometimes all they do is kiss each other before they fuck, panting and frustrated and Geno is always kind of rough, unrestrained and a bit careless and Sidney likes it, kind of. He’s always been with people who try to coddle him and take care of him, like there’s something about him that people want to protect. Though there is something strong and safe about Geno’s body over his, holding him down and steadying him with his weight, there is also something trusting, as if Geno knows him well enough already to know that he wants anything, can take anything.

Geno isn’t careful with him, not really. He fucks him the same way he barrels into him on the ice, the way he checks him at practices. They are teammates and they will protect each other, but in bed they both know they have nothing to worry about from each other. Sidney really, really appreciates that.

It is that appreciation, coupled with the weight of Mario’s warnings, the crushing importance of something that really seems so simple when it’s just them and they’re naked, that causes Sidney to clear his throat a little nervously when they’re redressing.

“Hey,” he says, and Geno looks at him, back to looking curious. “Do you want to stay for a while?”

“Stay?” Geno asks, frowning a little. He rarely ever stays past getting a glass of water or maybe a quick shower, depending on what they’ve done. 

“Yeah, just—we can watch a movie or something. It’s not that late.” Geno always comes after dinnertime because that’s when Sidney has the most time to himself away from the main house, though Mario and Nathalie keep making noises about having Geno formally over for dinner. Sidney has managed to mostly avoid it so far, though he’s not sure how long he’ll be able to withstand Nathalie’s will or the lure of her gingersnaps. “Will Gonch be mad?”

Geno makes a face, mouth twisting wryly as he shakes his head. “Not Gonch kid. Know where I am, yes?”

“Right, so—stay, okay? Just for a little while.” He leaves his bedroom in just his underwear, expecting Geno to follow and feeling weirdly pleased when he hears the floorboards creaking after him. 

He makes a stop in the kitchen, grabs as many snacks as there are in sight and some water, and then heads into the living room, where Geno is sitting in front of the TV with a bemused expression. “This is what friends do,” Sidney says as he unloads the snacks on the coffee table, like he’s an authority on the subject or something, feeling himself blush. Geno just grins a little, pats the couch cushion next to him, and when Sidney sits down, he slings an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in close.

“Wait, I need to get a movie,” Sidney says, trying to get up again, but Geno says, “Shh,” and grabs the remote, squeezing Sidney a bit and putting his feet up on the coffee table. He flips channels, breaks into the snacks once they settle on a reality show that Geno’s clearly familiar with, and settles more comfortably and faster than Sidney manages to, even though this had been his idea.

After he starts to relax, it’s easier to just drowse a bit at Geno’s side, drumming up the courage to lean his head against Geno’s shoulders and tuck his legs up under him. Geno is warm and comfortable and doesn’t shove him off or anything, just crunches on pretzels and laughs heartily when the people on the reality show fight each other and yell. 

“Sleep?” Geno asks when Sidney yawns. He sounds rumbly and fond and Sidney struggles to stay alert, shaking his head.

“No, I’m up, we’re hanging out.”

Geno chuckles a little and strokes his hand down Sidney’s side, which is not a friend thing to do but. Whatever. None of the sex is a friend thing to do at all. Sidney doesn’t think they’re going to have sex again but isn’t exactly opposed to it. He’s also not entirely opposed to being touched for not-sex, which isn’t something he’d anticipated.

Sidney does wind up dozing off there, and he only wakes up because Geno is shifting out from under him, gently placing a throw pillow under his head and reaching for the blanket he keeps over the couch. Before he can cover Sidney with it, Sidney struggles upwards and says, “Wait, m’up, I’ll drive you home.”

“Is okay,” Geno says, practically whispering for some reason. “Take cab.”

“No way, I always drive you home,” Sidney says. “Let me just—”

“Sid, sleep.” Sidney looks up into Geno’s stubborn eyes, thinks about being too embarrassed to lob out his next suggestion, and does it anyway.

“Stay.”

Geno looks confused again, frowning. “Stay? Whole night?”

“Yeah, sleep over.” Sidney stayed over at Bugsy’s once when he drank too much in his yard, falling asleep in the grass and getting woken up by Bugsy’s dog licking him. He crashed at Colby’s, too, and pulled the shaving cream prank on Jordy once when he stayed the night at Rex’s place. That’s totally a friend thing to do, especially if they don’t have sex again. 

Geno keeps frowning, but eventually he mimes a phone at his ear and says “Sergei.”

“Of course, yeah, call Gonch,” Sidney says, and Geno grabs his phone and talks in rapid, fluid Russian, settling back on the couch and blushing a little at whatever Gonch says.

Sidney leans into him again and listens, closing his eyes. He likes the sounds Geno makes, how comfortable he sounds in his own language. He only realizes that Geno has hung up when he feels fingers stroking through his hair a little, like Geno does when he wants to make out.

“We can,” Sidney says sleepily, leaning up for a kiss on the mouth. Geno obliges, kissing him for a while, and for the longest time that’s all they do, curled on the couch and kissing each other, unhurried and calm and sweeter than anything Sidney has ever felt. 

When they do go to sleep that night, it’s in the same bed, having brushed their teeth side-by-side and set an alarm early enough to avoid anything awkward at the Lemieux breakfast table. They don’t have sex again, though Sidney says, “We can,” again, and he can hear the smile in Geno’s voice when he shushes him and nudges him under the covers.

It’s maybe not a friends thing to exchange minty kisses once more before sliding under Geno’s arm and falling asleep warm and close to each other, but suddenly this is something that once again feels more important than friendship, bigger than anything they’ve done before. Sidney is still unsure about it, not quite set on the parameters or the definitions yet, but he dreams that night of a future of nights exactly like this, one after the other, absolutely worth the risk.

When Sidney wakes up, he only remembers the dream until Geno’s eyes flutter open. He loses the wisps of it on the drive to Gonch’s.

 

 

When the new arena deal is announced in March, the Penguins are in playoff position and Sidney has turned down the captaincy. Mario tells him he’s delaying the inevitable but he understands, too, when Sidney tells him he doesn’t feel ready yet.

“As long as it’s about you, and not—anything else,” Mario says. He’s talking about Geno, of course, and about the “Cindy Crosby” narrative, about Ovechkin, and Sidney gets it. He thinks it’s a little bit of all of that, but mostly about him, about the timing. They will make the playoffs but they are not there yet. The future is in Pittsburgh and Sidney still feels like he has so much time. 

“You’re coming out with us, Not-Captain,” Bugsy insists, and Sidney protests as much as he always does. He explains about the crowds, about the pictures, about being a good example and how _important_ that all is, especially now, but for once no one really listens to him. “We’re celebrating my hometown tonight, kid, you’re keeping us here and you’re gonna fucking drink with us.”

“You go,” Geno says when Sidney keeps arguing through his guilt, both hating and relishing the idea that he’s had such an impact on the team’s future. “I go, you go.” 

It’s a little embarrassing how easily he folds after that, but from Geno’s quick, wicked smile and the stirring heat in the pit of his stomach, it’s clear they’re both into that.

Going out with the guys is the same as any other night going out with them, though Sidney has admittedly little experience with it still. Max hits on anything that moves while Flower eggs him on, Erik and Jordy are hanging on Robs’ every word worshipfully, Gonch and Geno mostly huddle together and eye everyone’s drinking choices dubiously, and Bugsy and Colby manage to convince Sidney to drink two, then three beers.

“Okay,” he says when he’s done with the third. He tries to stand up and Geno yanks him down, making Bugsy hoot appreciatively and Colby shoot him a knowing, amused look. 

“No, he’s right,” Robs says, which makes everyone stare (or maybe everyone was already lost in his piercing eyes, that happens sometimes). “Let’s get to somewhere with a better lady scene.”

“Don’t insult the ladies of my city, _Gary_ ,” Bugsy says hotly, his eyes hazy and bright. “And believe me, that’s not why the kid wants to leave.”

“No insult meant, but I think we can help these kids out a bit, eh?” Robs shoots back, and Jordy might actually be close to falling out of his seat in excitement. Sidney rolls his eyes, and wants no part of this, but somehow they all wind up at someplace younger, louder, and with a lot more girls around. 

Sidney talks to a girl on the way back from the bathroom of the new place, keeping his practiced and polite disinterest clear. This is also standard protocol for when they go out and girls are involved; guys like Bugsy and Gonch seem to understand that this is not Sidney’s thing, for several different reasons, and it’s likely that Bugsy at least suspects the truest reason, which is that Sidney just really isn’t into girls. The rest of the team follows their lead and no one is ever going to give Sidney shit for it.

He’s lost track of Geno, Max, Jordy and Erik when he heads back to the table of the taken guys there to cheerlead. While the latter three is no surprise, he’s a little shocked that Geno has detached himself from Gonch’s side, and he tries to subtly look around for Geno through the crowd, trying to think of a way he can ask after him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Robs demands, startling Sidney badly until he continues. “You are 19 goddamn years old and she was a sure thing, are you stupid?” Robs doesn’t know him, Sidney has to remind himself, staring down at his beer and trying not to get pissed. Robs is still new to them.

Bugsy get pissed for him. “No, he’s Sidney fucking Crosby, he doesn’t have to fuck anyone he doesn’t want to,” Bugsy says, loud and brash and just a little mean, maybe meaner than he should talk to an older vet, but. Sidney grins at him anyway, grateful, and then pointedly finishes his fourth beer, thinking he can definitely excuse himself now.

“His kiddo buddies are ahead of him,” Robs says before Sidney can get the excuse out, and he points. Sidney can’t help it, he looks, and then immediately wishes he hadn’t, because—because Geno’s in a corner booth with a girl in his lap. They are exchanging the same kind of sloppy, enthusiastic kisses that Sidney knows the feel of all too well, and it’s really not what he wanted to see at all, to the point where he hadn’t actually imagined he’d see it ever.

And maybe that’s stupid. No, that’s really stupid, as is the unhappy churning of his gut, because they never—they never said anything about other people. Actually, they never said anything at all, and Sidney doesn’t know why his mind went to that exclusive place and why it’s there now because it shouldn’t be, at all. 

He works on getting it away from there, works on ignoring the pounding of his heart as he turns back to the guys with as impassive a face as he can muster. But Colby is staring at him, and Gonch looks annoyed, muttering in Russian and moving like he’s going to stand up, and Sidney thinks now is the best time for his escape. Now it’s suddenly, absolutely necessary.

“Not my thing,” Sidney manages, and he stands up as steadily as he can. Gonch and Colby do, too, but Gonch isn’t paying any attention to him, moving quickly toward Geno, and Colby knows what’s coming. “I’m gonna—”

“Me too,” Colby says immediately, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him companionably. “Come on, I’m beat, let’s cab it home together and wreck it on Mario Kart.”

Bugsy is rolling his eyes, still looking pissed off. “Hey Sid, don’t let this loudmouth run you off, okay, stay out with us and have another drink.”

“I’m not trying to run him off,” Robs says, throwing his hands up defensively. “Obviously you fucks aren’t doing anything for him, I’m just trying to help.”

“Come on,” Colby says again, and Sidney—he doesn’t want Colby with him, knows there’s no way he’s getting out of here without Colby huddling near him protectively, probably glaring at Geno the whole way out the door. He doesn’t want that, or Mario Kart after that, or anything that involves him wallowing about—Geno hasn’t really done anything wrong and Sidney doesn’t want to encourage Colby in thinking he did.

There is a window in the bathroom; he’d seen it at the urinal before, and now it seems like his only option, the best one. “All right, order me another beer,” Sidney says, trying to grin when Bugsy crows triumphantly. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom one more time.”

“Sid,” Colby says, but Sidney looks at him as pleadingly as he can, begging him mentally to back off until he sighs and sits down again. “Fine.”

“Get him something stronger,” he hears Robs saying as he hurries away, eager to get out of sight before Gonch drags Geno back. “Maybe we can get that stick out of his ass.” Sidney chokes his laughter into his hand and pushes quickly into the bathroom.

The men’s room is empty and tiny, though Sidney probably would’ve gone for the window even with witnesses around. He knows he might only have a few minutes before Colby loses his patience and follows him in and so he moves toward it right away, hefting it up and open through the frost sticking it closed. He has a leg up to climb through when the door does open, and he only looks back to make sure it’s not Colby.

It’s not Colby; it’s Geno, face flushed red and his lips swollen and slick with spit. He looks like he wants to laugh when he sees Sidney halfway out the window, but also like he’s not sure he should; he bites his lip and smothers his smile and Sidney feels anger rush through him steadily. Sidney doesn’t need to be humored by Geno, not when everyone else on the fucking team does it already.

“Fuck off,” he says, and Geno does laugh then, but he stops when Sidney starts out the window again.

“Wait,” Geno says, moving forward. “Sid mad?”

“I said fuck off, Geno, just let me—”

“Girl say no?” Geno asks, and that’s just—Sidney looks at him dead-on, shoving him away from the window hard enough the he almost tips out of it. Geno’s eyes flash with worry and hurt until Sidney doesn’t want to look at him anymore. 

“No Geno, _I_ say no. I don’t do that.” He feels vicious and triumphant when he adds, “And especially not in public, Jesus, where everybody can see and take pictures. What were you even thinking?”

“Everybody see, but—” Geno frowns deeply. “Is what we do, yes? Girls? Is what everyone do?”

“Not me,” Sidney says hotly. _Not you_ , he’d thought, but now he feels foolish for ever thinking that, for thinking he’d had a right to assume. He’d known Geno wasn’t like him, but he hadn’t imagined that he’d be faced with that so quickly and glaringly.

“Sid, why mad? Why—”

“And Gonch obviously doesn’t approve either,” Sidney continues determinedly. Geno rolls his eyes a little.

“Gonch say ‘no tongue, Zhenya, please, think of—of reputation. Not like home’ but Gonch think he is father. You are not.”

“No, I’m not. But I’m trying to set a good example and I thought you wanted to be a part of that.”

“Sid,” Geno says quietly. “You are climb out of window. Example?”

“Oh shut _up_ ,” Sidney says, and he pushes away from the window again and pushes Geno again. Geno grabs at his hands, holding him by the wrists and studying his face very carefully.

“Why mad?” he asks softly. Sidney feels his face heat up, and he glares at their feet, but Geno shakes his wrists a little and says, “Sid?”

“The team—”

“Team cheer me,” Geno says, and then he smirks a little, letting go of one of Sidney’s wrists to reach into his pocket and pull out a condom and a little packet of lubricant. “Gary give me this.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sidney says. “You were going to fuck her in the bathroom?”

“No,” Geno tells him. “You don’t want.”

He flushes harder. “It has nothing to do with what I want, okay, it’s about—”

“You don’t want,” Geno says again, and his grip on Sidney’s wrist tightens suddenly, his eyes going hotter. He’s serious, and Sidney plans to keep denying it, all the ridiculous, irrationality of it—he’d never wanted to see Geno with anyone else, but he hadn’t known he wanted him just for himself, either. 

“Maybe want this,” Geno says, and he leans in so close, his hand traveling lightly, before resting on Sidney’s ass. Sidney knows what this means, knows what happens next—now Geno leans in to kiss him, mouth already slightly open for it, and he smells sweaty and a little smoky from the bar and— 

“Wait,” Sidney chokes out, looking up at Geno but leaning away a little. “You were just—with a girl. You were just kissing her.”

He doesn’t really know why it bothers him so much. He’s been with guys and he’s watched them then hook up with girls at parties, and it’s all a part of what they do being secret and apart from their real lives as hockey players. Sidney understands secrecy, and he’s never resented it before.

He resents it now, though. Not the secrecy part, exactly, but just—the idea that _that_ was necessary for secrecy, the fear that someday maybe they’ll need more than just making out with a girl for a cover. Or the idea that Geno doesn’t mind it, that there’s a thrill there for him, something different than what Sidney gives him.

Sidney can’t say any of that, and he doesn’t think he would if he could, but Geno’s eyes are brighter now, still hot but way more focused, like he might get that this is not just about the sex, or about the team, but about something that might be bigger, and something Sidney doesn’t know how to name.

This is the longest conversation they have ever had, and Sidney feels like he hasn’t really said anything, any of what he really means, because what he means seems crazy and indescribable. 

Geno is starting to look frustrated, like there are things he wants to say, too. His eyes are still heated but rapt on Sidney’s, brow creasing and lips bowed until he says something liquid and earnest-sounding in Russian, before breaking off. He leans in ever closer and says, “Fuck English,” close to Sidney’s face and then, into his lips, he adds, “Want you.” His voice cracks.

Sidney kisses back, an instinct, but he _has_ to say, “But you—”

“Out there,” Geno says, and every word sounds difficult, slow and careful. “Okay, good example. But like this, just you, me.”

“Just you and me,” Sidney says, and Geno kisses him hungrily, nodding eagerly. “Only you and me, Geno, okay? Is that okay?”

“Okay,” Geno says. “Like this, only you and me. Okay.”

“Okay,” Sidney says, an achy sort of happiness filling him, ill-advised and a little wrong but fitting for what this has always been. He kisses Geno some more, familiar and dizzying and—and they’re in the bathroom of a bar full of his teammates. _Gary Roberts_ is out there. Sidney pulls back again and tries not to smile when Geno groans out loud.

“Really? In here?”

Geno shrugs. “Robs’ idea.” He holds up the condom and the lube and—God it’s a terrible example to set. It’s risky, it’s not careful, it’s nothing like he promised Mario that he would be. 

But he’s never really considered himself a good role model, and with Geno he doesn’t have to be, not if it’s really just them. Scoring a goal falling down is not something he’d ever recommend someone trying—it’s not something you can calculate, just a situation you have to react to. Sometimes the puck goes in, and right now, well. He’s either going to bust out on his ass or he’s going to score, and maybe if he’s lucky enough, it can be both.

“Does the door lock?” Sidney asks, and Geno grins widely at him and reaches back for it. Sidney starts pushing down his pants.

“We have to be quiet,” Sidney says when Geno presses up against him, hands everywhere, guiding him to bend over the sink, even though he knows he’s going to be the one Geno has to shut up with his hand. He’s kind of counting on it by now. “And we have to be—ah—fast—” Geno’s way ahead of him, slick fingers already circling his hole, pushing one inside of him when he arches back into them.

“Fuck,” Sidney says, and he bites his bottom lip but moans through getting fingered open, long enough that Geno’s other hand is rough when it slaps over his mouth and stays there. It’s almost too soon to feel the blunt press of Geno sliding into him, insistent and feeling bigger right now as he feels himself stretching to accommodate him, but it’s also exactly the right time; his dick is jerking and getting wet already and the moans he rolls out against Geno’s hand are getting desperate. They can be fast, Sidney fucking loves fast. 

Geno fucks him fast. Sidney braces himself against the sink and spreads his legs as wide as his pants let him and closes his eyes. He can hear Geno mumbling Russian into the back of his neck, curses he knows by now and a few phrases that don’t sound entirely familiar, but it all sounds good to Sidney. 

He likes the way his own noises sound muffled against Geno’s hand, embarrassing but also controlled, like Geno is willing to catch anything that Sidney lets slip out.

He listens to more than Geno, to the sounds of the bar outside, the music. He wonders if the people he can hear out there is the team, imagines that they’re closer to the bathroom than they actually are, and—Sidney registers Geno breathing out, “Shh, shh,” and realizes he’s keening high in his throat, still muffled but _loud_. Geno snaps his hips harder, like he’s trying to shut Sidney up anyway, but the angle just makes him grab himself and come, shaking and going limp in Geno’s hold.

Geno comes when Sidney clenches weakly, swearing in English now like he wants Sidney to understand for sure. They pant for a while and Sidney feels strangely empty when Geno starts pulling away. He wants to grab him and keep him there, but instead concentrates on holding himself up. 

Finally, he pulls his pants back on and looks at Geno, staring at the bathroom door with a frown. Sidney understands his trepidation and looks back at the window—still open, still climbable. “Hey,” he says, and when Geno looks over, Sidney nods at the window.

Geno grins.

 

Geno and Gonch invite Sidney over for dinner just before playoffs. They’ve had a fantastic March, everyone is excited about Sidney on top of the scoring race, and Sidney himself can taste the playoffs, can’t wait to tear into them. He is excited.

The dinner invitation isn’t really surprising; Geno had amiably conceded to a dinner at Mario’s house, where much mention was made of their wonderful friendship and absolutely no mention was made of their sexual relationship. It went pretty well. That’s what Sidney’s expecting out of Gonch’s house, and it basically goes the same as Mario’s, with one major difference.

After dinner, Sidney and Geno don’t have the guesthouse to disappear to, but Geno shows Sidney his bedroom anyway. He closes the door pointedly behind them, puts his finger to his mouth, and says, “We can if _shh_.”

Sidney is already yanking his pants down with one hand and tugging at his tie with the other hand. He’d worn a tie because Geno had worn a tie to Mario’s house, and though Gonch had nearly busted a gut laughing at him when Sidney turned up at the front door, he’d stuck with it all night. Ksenia had called him darling and taken a picture of him, so obviously it wasn’t such a bad choice.

Now, Geno takes Sidney’s tie in his hands and looks at speculatively. He looks at Sidney’s mouth next and Sidney goes hot all over, immediately turned on by the implication. He’s shaking before Geno even does it, eyes questioning and careful the whole time he reaches forward to wind the tie over Sidney’s mouth.

He kisses him first, though, and that’s what gets them caught. 

Sidney doesn’t hear the knock, but he does hear the Russian call as the door is opening. He feels Geno shoot practically across the room from him in an instant, but it’s not a quick enough instant, because Gonch is standing there looking tired and very unimpressed.

He says, “Zhenya,” flatly, and then the rest is Russian Sidney doesn’t understand, rapid and a little harsh but not yelling, exactly. Sidney listens to them uncomfortably for a while, zeroing in on his tie still draped from Geno’s hand. He can at least be grateful that Gonch hadn’t seen _that._

It’s a little while before he can drum up the courage to say, “Um, should I—” Sidney has no idea what he wants to suggest but Geno, mostly silent through Gonch’s talking and glaring sullenly at the floor, looks up at him. His face is weirdly, discomfortingly blank. 

Sidney takes a step back before he even speaks, and then he’s glad he did when Geno just goes, “Should go.”

“Uh,” Sidney says, and Gonch says something sharp in Russian. Geno ignores him, though, and nods stiffly at Sidney, who feels his face start burning and his stomach drop. “Okay?”

“Sid,” Gonch says very tiredly, but Sidney suddenly wants to get out of there as soon as possible, and makes sure to pull his pants up before he makes a break for it. His boner is not so traitorous or resilient that it could withstand _that_ clear dismissal, thank God, so the trip down the stairs toward the front door is smoother than it could’ve been, even with his stuttered-out goodbye and thanks thrown toward a very confused Ksenia.

He barely makes it to his car before he hears, “Crosby, wait!” and flinches as Gonch comes up behind him. “I will drive you home,” Gonch says firmly, plucking Sidney’s car keys out of his hand and glaring at him firmly. “I will take your car back to you in the morning, don’t worry. Don’t look at me like that, maybe if you took the C like you should you could argue with me. Get in.”

Sidney gets into his own damn passenger seat, grumbling, preferring to concentrate on his annoyance rather than the fear bubbling up inside of him or the image of Geno’s face, colder than Sidney has ever, ever seen it. 

Gonch gives him until they’ve made it down the street before he bursts out, “Are you a _fucking_ idiot?”

“ _No_ ,” Sidney says, scowling at his knees. “We’ve been careful, okay, that’s the first time anyone’s ever seen us, and we—”

“No, no. I did not mean for you to answer. You are an idiot. So is Zhenya.” Gonch groans, shaking his head roughly. “Two reasons we are still in Pittsburgh and they are fucking. Beautiful.”

“We’re not gonna do anything to hurt the team, Gonch! It’s our own private lives, it’s none of anyone’s business.” He hates how whiny and defensive he sounds, because he’s _right_. 

“I do not approve,” Gonch says plainly, and Sidney can’t help flinching, no matter how angry he immediately gets. Gonch groans again. “No, I do not mean—shut up, Sid, I know you like boys since you get here and I say nothing. I do not care about boys and boys. I care about _children_ fucking around on my team.”

“We’re not children,” Sidney complains, trying not to feel oddly touched by the fierce protectiveness in Gonch’s voice. “We’re both adults, we can make our own choices—”

“You are idiots. You make idiotic choices. Zhenya is no better.” He gentles his voice a little, softer and very serious. “You two are going to lead this team, you are already doing that. How can you think this is a good thing to do? Do you know what he has given up to be here?”

“Of course I know, I would never—I will never let this hurt the team.” Sidney thinks about it for a minute and adds, a little quieter, “I will never let this hurt Geno. I wouldn’t do that.”

Gonch sighs loudly, noisily, and when Sidney looks over his face is soft, his lips pressed together in a thin, unhappy line. “I have to worry,” Gonch says, and Sidney feels touched again, a little warm. “I don’t like this. I will always worry.”

“Mario, too,” Sidney says, and Gonch relaxes then, like if Mario knows, he’s not the only one being irresponsible by letting this go on. “I promise that we’ll be okay.”

“Only a teenager thinks he can promise like that, Sid,” Gonch tells him quietly, but when they pull up to the guesthouse he gets out of the car and gives Sidney a quick hug, kissing him sloppily on the side of the head and then shoving him toward his driveway. 

All in all, Sidney’s mostly feeling better about everything when he goes to sleep, better still when he wakes up and his car is outside, delivered as promised. That lasts until he gets to practice, says a chirpy good morning to Geno and Gonch getting ready, and Geno looks away from him.

Sidney blinks, and Gonch sighs again like he had last night, like everything in his life is terrible all at once. He just shrugs at Sidney, though, and glares a little at Geno’s bowed head, and Sidney decides to move on, figuring he can grab Geno to attempt a talk after practice.

That doesn’t work, though, because Geno shoots out of practice with Max, planning to head to some arcade Max had found. Max starts to invite Sidney along but when Geno grabs him and yanks him out of earshot quickly, Sidney is left blinking again and kind of feeling like he’s back in high school, ditched for off-campus lunch plans he was never meant to be included in. 

It’s a weird, unsettling feeling, not one Sidney thought he’d ever wind up experiencing with his team now, at this age. It helps a little that Max apologizes later, saying he has no idea what’s gotten into Geno, and the arcade wasn’t even that fun, anyway; Geno barely talked to him at all.

Sidney wants to say, “Well that’s how he is,” but now that Geno’s not talking to _him_ , it doesn’t feel like such an endearing, defensible quality.

It takes two more practices and the last game of the season, before which their still-evolving handshake is performed silently and stoically, for Sidney to figure out he’s being summarily, silently dumped. He’s never been dumped before because getting rejected by straight guys doesn’t count; he’s never been with any one person long enough to get dumped, and it’s all confusing anyway because he’s pretty sure that words have to be said for the dumping to be official.

No words are said, though, except “Can’t,” when Sidney invites Geno over, or “No,” when Sidney asks him if he wants to come along with him and Jordy and Erik for lunch. Gonch is no help, promising that he’d given the same, lovingly firm speech to Geno that he had given to Sidney, that Geno should _know_ that Gonch is worried but accepting, will protect them if he needs to. Gonch thinks he’s too embarrassed to talk about it but he has been quiet at home, sullen. 

“Teenagers,” Gonch says knowingly, and Sidney has to fight not to bark out that Geno’s not technically a teenager, and Sidney only has a few months left.

He feels like a teenager, though, fighting not to mope at home, trying to focus on his game and nothing else. They are in the playoffs, they are there and they are a young team going up against the suddenly intimidating Senators, and that is where his focus needs to be. And so it is, forcibly; he makes sure that nothing about his mood leaks out into the locker room, makes sure that there’s no hints at all the current Art Ross winner spent the night before sadly jacking off with his hand over his mouth, unhappy and unsatisfied and stupidly pathetic. 

Colby figures it out anyway, though, and he’s the one that needs to be talked down from exacting some kind of revenge on Geno. “I’m fine,” Sidney says with as much surety as he can. “I’m looking ahead, I’m going to regroup now and refocus and—”

“And you sound like you just lost your first playoff game,” Colby says sadly. Sidney barely refrains from knocking on wood, but it’s a close thing, and his glare lets Colby know that talk in unacceptable. Colby just rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, I’m coming over tonight, we’re having bro time. Don’t even front, okay, I stole your spare key ages ago.”

“I’m changing the locks!” Sidney insists, but of course he doesn’t; there isn’t really enough time between all his extra pre-playoffs meals and avoiding talking to Mario about anything that has remotely to do with Geno.

So Colby shows up, and not alone. He brings Bugsy and Max and Rex and Jordy, of course, a bit starstruck and staring up at the main house like it’s going to up and leave at any second. Robs show up too, bearing potato chips that taste like cardboard and heavy, judgmental frowns at all the junk food they’re consuming in Sidney’s living room, but he bites his tongue and just eats his own chips.

“No girls, no booze,” Robs says when Sidney politely thanks him for coming. “Didn’t want you to go out the fucking window again.”

Everybody laughs at him, because will nobody will ever stop laughing at him for climbing out the window that time, but Colby makes them shut up pretty quick and says, “Sid got dumped. You’re not getting details, you’re not getting a juicy story, you’re just getting a sad little future captain that needs his team to help him wallow. Got it?”

“I remember the first time I got dumped,” Rex says wistfully, talking through half an ice cream sandwich he’d jammed in his mouth. “She was 16, I was 12. It was just one summer, but _ohh_ boy.”

Sidney then gets to hear basically everybody’s romantic histories, and it’s not purely helpful to him, but at least it’s interesting. Max should theoretically have multiple diseases if half of his stories are true, and Jordy’s apparently been in love with the same girl for most of his life and daydreams of filling a house with tons of blond, hockey-playing Staals to, in Rex’s words, form his own All-Staal League someday. 

It’s easy for him to forget about Geno, then, at least for a while, because he doesn’t have to talk about him; Colby set up that rule and everybody sticks to it. The guys stay well past the time Sidney’s usually comfortable with allowing company, and when they leave they all hug with varying degrees of perceived manliness, on a sliding scale from Robs to Colby, who basically clings to Sidney like an octopus. 

“Playoffs, kid,” Bugsy says during his hug, like Sidney could’ve forgotten or something. “You’re gonna crush it, we’re gonna crush it, and you’re gonna forget all about that guy. I mean, that girl. Whatever. Chin up and stuff.”

“Thanks, Bugsy,” Sidney says, his chest going a little tight as he hugs back.

He has a good fucking team, and Bugsy’s right. They’re going to crush it, and though Geno is still—it’s still hard to think of Geno, and he thinks about what they were doing and what they were starting to become and gets sad, pretty much randomly, but now, right now: the playoffs are here, and nothing else matters.

 

It’s easier to think that they’re going to crush it before they get actually crushed, though. Losing Game One is just unsettling; winning Game Two helps, but the shitshow that is game Game Three rattles Sidney badly.

It’s not just that they lose, which would be bad enough. They’re outmatched in the series and that becomes increasingly obvious in each subsequent game. The losses are hard to swallow but acceptable. Things kind of break down by the end, though, in a scrum by Emery’s net. Sidney takes a hard shot from Phillips and Geno basically loses his mind on him in a way that Sidney has never seen so close up. It’s jarring and unsettling and he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about the way Geno looks at him in the room after, eyes heavy when they’d avoiding him for a while now. He doesn’t have time to think about it.

They are bounced from the playoffs in five games, though, and the overwhelming sentiment is that they were lucky to even steal one game. It’s incredibly discouraging, and he can’t decide if this kind of failure is worse than not having made the playoffs last year. 

Coach Therrien manages to whip them out of that line of thinking right away, though, talking to them on getaway day and reminding them of how far they came, promising to go farther next year. They’re young, everyone says it all the time, they’re a young team and they can only get better. Sidney hears it enough that it starts to feel true, and it’s only a few days before he can start really believing in it. 

It helps that Geno comes to him, driving up to the guesthouse in Gonch’s borrowed car. It’s weird to see him behind the wheel, and weird to see him looking so guilty. Sidney lets him in warily and tries to remember his anger, realizing that he really can’t manage to be angry about anything more than losing to the Sens right now.

“Sorry, Sid,” is the first thing Geno says, which is kind of what he’d been expecting. Sidney nods, knowing it’s right to forgive, for the team and for their future. He’s completely thrown when Geno says, “Sorry for Sens.”

There’s Sidney’s anger, flaring up quick and bright. “What the fuck? Are you saying you’re sorry we lost?” When Geno nods slowly, looking down, Sidney huffs loudly. “No way, Geno, You’re not why we lost.”

“Mess everything up,” Geno mumbles. “Sergei say—he say I am idiot, he is right, I get scared and I—”

“Okay, yeah, but what does that have to do with the Sens?” Sidney asks. Geno frowns at him. 

“We lose, Sid. I get no goals, lot of penalty, is not—”

“We’re a team, Geno. We didn’t lose because you dumped me.” Geno cringes, shaking his head.

“Sorry, too. I get scared—”

“I know, okay, I get it, you don’t have to—”

“Have to,” Geno says firmly. He looks frustrated like he always does when he has a lot to say in English, and Sidney watches him carefully, knowing by now that what Geno means to say is always going to play out in his eyes first. “I get scared because—home, people find out what—what we do, and is big problem. Scary, Sid. Sorry I hurt you.”

Sidney doesn’t know what to say to that. The hurt of losing had far eclipsed the hurt of losing him and Geno, but it’s still there, more tender than he’s going to admit. He manages to nod, forces himself to spit out words because Geno has tried so hard to give him some.

“I—it’s okay, Geno.”

Geno smiles a little sadly. “Not okay. I know.”

It’s really not, not right now, especially not with them heading home soon and another long offseason stretching out before them. But the offseason isn’t the only thing stretching out before them.

“Hey,” Sidney says quietly. “I’m going to take the C.”

Geno’s smile gets a little brighter. “I know. Good.”

“And you’re going to win the Calder, you know it. And what we did this year—it was great. Not just us but—everything, with the team and everything. And we—” He thinks about it carefully, feeling a little out of depth now that he needs the right words. Not just words that sound good, but words that he means, truly believes in. “We’ve got so much time, right? We’ll have a lot of time together, and I think—we’re gonna be okay.” 

“Okay,” Geno says, and his smile is bright as can be now, big and full and like he _believes_ Sidney, which is all he wants. When he leans in and kisses Sidney, it is light and gentle, nothing like what they’ve done before, and it’s like a promise more than anything, an acknowledgment of all the time they’ll have to figure any of this out, for themselves and for the team.

Sidney closes his eyes, and even after Geno is gone, he is sure he can taste the future.

**Author's Note:**

> Some references:
> 
> [this crazy fucking goal](http://youtu.be/50p8xElfyzo) against the Yotes, and [this bit of nonsense](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBTCo8FnHHo) involving the Sens are referenced directly. Oh Penguins, you've come so far and yet. So not far at the same time. God love ya.


End file.
